Flophouse Favorite #1 - L'Or de Saba

I am often solicited for advice about Paris - nice places to eat, good shops, salons and so forth - that are a bit off the beaten path.  These are places that were recommended to me by friends, colleagues and vendors (thank you, IBM...) or in a few rare cases I discovered them myself when I was tootling around the city.  These are places I like enough to go back to on a regular basis.

L'Or de Saba (39 rue Taitbout, 75009 Paris)

Since 1989 I have been looking for a really good hair salon in Paris.  My first haircut in France (I was living in Courbevoie at the time) was a complete disaster.  I obviously misunderstood the customer/service relationship.  To make a long story short, I asked for a short hair cut and the hairdresser violently disagreed.  "I refuse to make a woman look like a boy," she said.  She won, I lost, and it's been the same depressing story with every salon I have been to since.

Until I found the L'Or de Saba.  This is a very small salon near the Galeries Lafayette run by two charming ladies, Laure and Sabine. The service is excellent.  Sabine has a sense of adventure - she will try just about anything you have in mind because, as she says, "It's just hair and if you don't like the way it turns out, then we'll do something else".  To date she has never had to resort to a plan b.  Everything she has done to my hair has turned out spectacularly well.  Laure gives amazing facials and has managed to make my skin look as good as that of the Parisien women I work with.

So, if you just happen to be shopping in the 9th arrondissement near the "grands magasins" and you have a couple of hours free, stop by and see if they have an opening.